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PETA filed a lawsuit against SeaWorld last October, demanding that five orcas be released immediately on grounds that the 13th Amendment banning slavery should apply to animals.

"All five of these orcas were violently seized from the ocean and taken from their families as babies,'' said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk upon filing the suit. "They are denied freedom and everything else that is natural and important to them while kept in small concrete tanks and reduced to performing stupid tricks. The 13th Amendment prohibits slavery, and these orcas are, by definition, slaves.''

SeaWorld executives have called the suit a "baseless'' publicity stunt offensive to those the amendment was written to protect.

These are intelligent mammals, and I hope the court ruling is in PETA's favor to prevent future animals from being enslaved by Sea World.

My only question is should the ones currently enslaved really be released back into the wild?

Since they have been in captivity since babies, I am worried they would not be able to survive in the open ocean.

I am not a marine biologist, so I assume people in this field would guide any such decisions.

Perhaps there are whale sanctaries that would provide a transition to the wild or a place to live out their lives without being forced to preform the cheap tricks at whim that Sea World forces thm to do.